New Releases

August 7^th – 13^th

Tuesday, Aug. 9^th

Puccu Power Up will be available for the Nintendo DS

Wednesday, Aug. 10^th

Fruit Ninja Kinect will be available for the Xbox 360

And that’s it for the new releases .. slow week!

Diablo 3 Auction House

Buying & selling items for real cash or in-game gold

The Diablo 3 Auction House will mean that you don’t have to quest and loot forever to gather the best equipment, now you can just purchase it with real money or in-game gold.  You will also, as the name implies, be able to auction off any of your loot and convert the gold you make from the auction into Blizzard e-balance or real cash.

Here is what we know so far:

Blizzard expects to have the auction house, or at least a version of it, running when the Diablo 3 beta comes out.

Because trading was never really perfected in Diablo 2, basically the economy ran wild, which is why Blizzard came up with the Auction House.  Even though finding items was a huge part of the Diablo experience, drops were very random and you never knew what item would be dropped, therefore you could be hunting for a long time for a rare treasure item.  It was just easier to find someone who was willing to trade for that item.  There were only a few ways to trade in Diablo 2, meeting up with someone who had what you needed and you had something they wanted or use third-party sites like e-bay and possibly end up getting scammed.

With the Auction House you can buy or sell items with real cash or in-game gold.  Blizzard doesn’t have any plans currently to put items into the Auction House, so all items will be those the players have available for auction or sale.  However, there is some possibility that Blizzard will be adding items later.

All players will be anonymous during trades and hardcore players won’t be able to use the real money auction house, only the trade aspect.  You can choose to have the money you make (not the in-game gold) go to your Blizzard e-balance to be used in the Blizzard store or even send it to a third party payment provider to withdraw the real cash.

Blizzard expects some backlash regarding this decision, especially among their hardcore players, however, they also feel it will add a new dimension of fun to the game.

HBO Go

Coming to game consoles soon

HBO has a service for mobile devices and browsers called HBO Go which will soon be making its debut on consoles.  It’s a service that has been a huge success for HBO on the mobile devices and they hope it will be just as successful on game consoles.

There hasn’t yet been a lot of detail about the launch date of the service but if you don’t have an HBO subscription for your television service, this may be a way to enjoy some of those very popular HBO shows such as Game of Thorns or True Blood on you Xbox 360 or your PS3.

Bungie’s Next Game

They do like to tease!

Bungie, former developer of Halo, has been pretty silent about its next project, there just hasn’t been a lot of info regarding what they are currently working on.  But Bungie likes to tease us every once in a while.  Yesterday they released a new video titled “O Brave New World” as part of its 20^th Anniversary celebration.  In the video Bungie Studio members reminisce about past titles they have released.  Near the end of the video, the team gives us some hints about what is coming and refer to a new project which they codenamed Tiger.

Joseph Staten, a Bungie writer, stated “We feel responsible for not just telling an isolated story but for building a universe that at some point is going to become more ‘the fans’ then ours.”  He adds that “Its going to take a life of its own.”  The video also gave us a few peaks as what is believed to be the concept art for the new game, a vast desert setting.

In February there was a report that the new project would be a first-person MMO that was set in space with a tentative title of “Destiny.”  Yet there has been no confirmation of this report.

New Mii content for 3DS

Your Miis won’t go to waste

When the 3DS launched its software lineup was pretty weak even though it had packaged software that was plenty of fun.  One of the titles that came packaged with the 3DS was StreetPass Mii Plaza, it used the ability to communicate with other systems while in sleep mode to create a puzzle-hunting game and a mini- RPG.  Players collected puzzle pieces and Mii hats as they traversed through the games.

Sadly, once you collected the last of the items, there just wasn’t anything else to do with this little fun piece of software.  Finally, Nintendo has heard your complaints and will soon be bringing new things to the Mii Plaza.

Nintendo’s President Satoru Iwata stated that they are currently preparing new things to be offered on the StreetPass Mii Plaza by the end of this year.  They are also working on several new game titles where you will be able to do something with all the Miis you have already collected.  Satoru states that all your Miis stored in your 3DS will not go to waste.

World of Warcraft

Subscriptions falling

World of Warcraft subscribers has steadily been dropping this year.  While it is still one of the most highly subscribed to game, it has lost about 300,000 subscriptions since May.  Blizzard Entertainment expects to begin flooding WoW with fresh content in effort to bring subscribers back to the game.

Vita’s U.S. Launch

Won’t be available as a stocking stuffer this year

Trying to get a specific release date for the PlayStation Vita from Sony has been like pulling teeth.  Sony has stated that they will launch a “global rollout” in late 2011, yet that is not giving us much information about exactly when and where.  Does that mean all regions will have the Vita on store shelves by the end of this year? Or what?

Kaz Hirai, the Sony boss, has finally given us some information.  Apparently the system will be available in Japan this year, but it won’t be available in the Europe or U.S. market until early next year (OK, that’s still kind of vague, Sony).  At least we know that U.S. gamers won’t have the new system in their Christmas stockings this year.